1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of musical reference, and specifically to the area of integrated musical reference tools.
2. Description of the Relevant Art
The most common approaches towards presenting musical reference information include devices based upon wheels or slides. Typically, in such devices, a sheet containing raw musical data, often in sequential format such as rows and/or columns, passes beneath a perforated cover to reveal part of the data. The perforated cover displays reference information which, in conjunction with the revealed subset of data on the data sheet, provides musical reference information. The musical reference information may be presented in a variety of musical keys, depending upon the relative positions of the data sheet and the perforated cover. In the wheel format, the data sheet rotates around a pivot point. In the slide format, the sheets simply slides back and forth under the perforated cover.
With these approaches, a single device generally expresses a single aspect of music theory, such as chord construction, scale building, or transposition. In other words, these approaches do not present integrated music theory concepts but instead feature distinct aspects of music theory or musical reference on separate wheels or slides. The layouts on the wheel-type approach are typically radial and are thus limited due to the space requirements of a circular format. The slide-type approach tends to be linear in layout but limited in usable area due to accommodation of the extra length of the slide.
Due to the drawbacks of the existing approaches discussed above, an improved method and device for presenting musical reference information are needed.